A/N: Hello, fanfic world! Oh my goodness, I hope you guys don't hate me :( I thought I had a good grip on everything last time I updated, but you know how life just loves to turn things around on you unexpectedly. It has been months of torture for me not to update, and I know you guys felt the same way (or even more so). I am so sorry! But seriously, with this winter break, I really will be updating more before next semester starts. I hope you guys enjoy this long-awaited chapter, because all of you deserve it. Cheers!
P.S. We are almost there for the winter premiere! Ahhh, I'm so excited!
"Hey, Callie. Long time no see."
Freezing, Callie opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. All thoughts in her mind seemed to scatter amidst her distress, causing her to fight for control over her emotions. Her usual calm demeanor was clearly dashed, and any hope to cover her panic was fleeting.
"W-what the hell are you doing here?" she asked, voice shaking slightly.
Liam simpered, the corners of his lips twisted upwards. Brandon stiffened, restraining himself from the desire to wipe the smile off his face.
"I'm on a date," he replied nonchalantly. "And what about you two? From what I saw, seems like a double date."
"You were watching us?" Brandon growled.
The other man shrugged, his smirk remaining in its spiteful state. "I was just observing."
"Sounds like bullshit," Brandon scoffed, his irritation increasing. "Where did you not understand when I said 'stay the hell away from her'?"
Liam's eyes roamed back to Callie, giving her a wink. "I guess I couldn't resist stopping by." She flinched, evidently disgusted.
The suggestive action enraged the blue-eyed Foster, who protectively moved in front of Callie to shield her. "Don't you dare look at her like that!" he shouted.
"I'll look at her whatever way I want to," Liam challenged, taking a step forward to size him up. "What's it to you, anyway?"
Brandon fumed, unable to quickly snarl a response due to his overwhelming resentment. Instead, he chose to glare in seething silence, refusing to blink.
"Brandon," Callie murmured, tugging on his arm. "Let's go back. Come on, he's just not worth it."
When he remained silent, eyes still caught in a steely stare-down with his hostile rival, she sighed aloud. She leaned in to his ear, whispering, "Please. I can't stand him either, but…let's just go. We're already making a scene."
Suddenly, a shift in Liam's expression flashed, a look of recognition shining in his eyes. A laugh reverberated through his throat, startling Callie. "Ah, I get it," he sneered. "I totally get it now."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Brandon raised an eyebrow, frowning.
"I guess we have a lot more in common than you think," Liam chuckled. His gaze lowered to Callie. "Her."
Brandon opened his mouth to respond, but this time it was his turn to become speechless.
"I know that look in your eyes," Liam continued, taking advantage of the stunned silence. "That look that goes unnoticed by everyone else. The way that you protect her, guarding her from any danger – when the biggest threat to her safety is yourself." He took a step closer, his face only a few inches away from him. "I know you because I used to be you."
A loud crack sounded through the air, as Brandon's fist collided into the older man's face. Callie shrieked, launching herself forward to grab ahold of him as he continued to throw punches.
"Stop this! Stop it, Brandon!" she cried out.
"Don't you dare say that I'm anything like you!" he shouted.
In a swift flash of movement, Hunter, who had already been making his way over, quickly injected himself between the brawling pair and tore the older man away from Brandon's grip, locking his arms behind his back. Callie, in turn, grabbed Brandon, holding him back.
"If you aren't anything like me, then why are you so pissed off?" Liam spat, his lip busted and blood dripping down his shirt.
"Because you are so full of shit!" Brandon erupted. "You are accusing me of being like you, a monster who hurt her!"
"Well, you may not be a 'monster'," Liam's tone mocked at the term. "But you are sure as hell hurting her! Believe me, I know hurt when I see it, especially on her, and with the way you look at her, everything just clicks."
Brandon suddenly froze, unable to mask the pain in his features. The other man clearly hit the bullseye, right on target.
"We may have hurt her for different reasons, but the effect is the same," Liam muttered. "Hurt is hurt. No other way around it."
As much as he wanted to deny the claim, Brandon knew that he couldn't. To an extent, it was true…that even though he hurt Callie for an obviously different reason than the other man, the effect was indeed the same. Indeed, 'hurt is hurt', and out of all people, she had more than enough of her share in her damaged past…and the last thing she needed was another reason to tear her down.
"Fuck off, Liam," Callie hissed. Her searing anger overshadowed her previous anxiety, and now she was staring daggers right through him.
Shrugging off Hunter's grip, Liam stepped back. Throwing a last glance at Brandon, he smirked. "Glad to know that I'm not the only asshole here." Ignoring the snarl that immediately followed, he added. "See you around, Callie."
"To hell you will!" Brandon growled.
Ignoring the retort, Liam coolly walked away, his towering build intimidating as he snaked through the tables and booths filled with people, who were staring widely at the scene that had just unfolded before them.
The tension in Brandon's stance didn't falter, and he continued to fume and breathe heavily.
"Enough," Callie hushed. "Everyone is looking over here."
He shook his head, breaking free from her grasp. He muttered incoherently under his breath, roughly running a hand through his hair in frustration. She feared that he would punch a hole through the wall if he kept simmering in his rage like this, and that was the last thing anyone needed.
She sighed. "Brandon, please calm down-"
"Don't," he interrupted her. His blue eyes were on fire, mouth set in a tense line. "Just, don't."
"He's gone now!"
"He could have hurt you!"
"And you don't think I realized that?" she hissed. "I know that it upset you to see him, but imagine how I felt!"
His face fell, and he bit his lip guiltily. In the midst of his anger, he did not stop to consider how she felt in the situation. "Callie…" he sighed, taking a step closer towards her.
"Hey," a soft voice suddenly interjected, startling them. Wide-eyed and confused, Abby appeared, wringing her wrists in apprehension. "Is everything okay? I heard some commotion going on and I-"
"Yeah," Brandon cut her off rashly. "Everything is fine." As revealed in his tone, his patience was wearing thin, taking out his frustration on the next person to unintentionally intervene. All of them were shocked into stillness, unsure of what to say or do. The wounded look in Abby's eyes was unbearable, as she seemed to shrink into herself.
Realizing all too late the harshness in his demeanor, he reached out to her, softly murmuring, "Abby, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…" But he was brushed aside, his offer of solace rejected as Abby stormed out of the restaurant. He quickly chased after her, cursing to himself.
Stupefied, Callie stood there, staring after them. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she groaned. "Isn't this just great? Damn great way to end the night!"
However, rather than the expected witty reply she was anticipating (and hoping for), Hunter remained silent.
She turned to him, eyebrows raised. In the midst of even the most adverse situations, the blonde haired musician always seemed to find humor to alleviate any sort of tension in the air…and she loved that about him, finding it incredibly endearing. But something about this moment seemed to differ, and it scared her.
"Yeah," he mumbled faintly. "Just great." For the first time, his face was expressionless, his usual playful smile absent and the light in his green eyes were gone, and any trace of laughter vanished from his features.
Now she was really scared.
Before she could say anything, Hunter murmured quietly, "I'm going to apologize to our waitress that we're leaving." He treaded back towards their table, not bothering to look back.
…
Pulling up to the driveway, Hunter drew the brakes and stared absently into space. Mirroring his actions, Callie gazed through the windshield, unable to say anything.
The entire drive back to the Foster home was dead silent, only the sounds of the outside passing wind and quiet playing of the radio serving as petty background noise.
The pair remained both speechless and motionless, lost in their own thoughts and emotions.
Clearing her throat, Callie unbuckled her seatbelt. "Are you coming in?"
Refusing to meet her eye, Hunter stared down at his dashboard. "No," he replied quietly. He didn't add anything else to his response, declining to explain why.
In just the single word he replied with, she was left stunned, more so than if he shouted at her. Everything, from the moment he stared blankly at her when they were leaving the restaurant to now, was out of character for him, and it alarmed her.
"Why?" she whispered, slight fear hidden in her voice. She didn't know why she was asking…ultimately, she knew. She just refused to believe it.
As if reading her mind, Hunter shook his head. "You know why."
He shifted his gaze to her, his eyes meeting hers for the first time ever since the drive. The hurt was so evident in his expression that it made her cringe, causing her to momentarily break eye contact and look away.
"How could you…?" he whispered. "Why did you lie to me?"
And the elephant in the room was finally addressed, rearing its ugly head and demanding to be answered, which reminded her of that night on the beach when they had their talk. The pain in his voice broke her a little inside, as she felt a lump gather in her throat.
"I didn't lie to you," she said quietly.
His breath hitched, as the frustration in his tone became evident. "Callie, don't. You hid this from me. It's the same thing, choosing not to say something rather than telling me, knowing that I have the right to know."
Hunter's words sank in, adding on to the heaviness of guilt building in the pit of her stomach.
She tore her gaze away from him, unable to maintain eye contact with the shattered emeralds she had come to adore. "It didn't seem like something worth mentioning."
"You didn't think it was worth mentioning that you had a relationship with Brandon?" he asked incredulously. "Brandon, your adopted brother? It wasn't something that would be of significance to me?"
Callie squeezed her eyes shut. "Hunter, please…don't."
But Hunter continued, the pain in his expression and voice more evident with each word. "Callie, I like you so much…I've been understanding, even willing to wait for you because I knew how much you were hurting from this ex of yours. But to find out that this ex was Brandon? The one unspoken thing I asked from you is honesty, and you hid this from me."
She didn't respond, biting her lip as she stared out the window.
"Why was your past with Brandon so important for you to hide it from me?" he questioned. Fear was veiled in his voice, as if he felt unsure that he wanted to know. But then it dawned on him. "Unless it isn't the past."
Caught off guard, she turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"
"You still have feelings for him."
"No, I don't," she denied.
"That wasn't a question, Callie," Hunter sighed. "I should have known. It clicked when I realized what Liam was talking about, that you guys would have a past…and damn, Callie, did that hurt. But it makes even more sense now, with the way you guys look at each other, smile when the other enters the room…thinking that nobody else notices when I should have noticed all along."
He laughed dryly to himself. "Maybe I did. But I just kept denying it, trusting that you would tell me something like that."
The guilt had become overbearing, as Callie had to restrain the tears from spilling over, taking deep breaths to attempt to regain her emotional bearings.
Although she faced many emotional situations in the past, this was one of the top ones to truly undo her. Anytime the loss of trust was involved it simply broke her, for the lack of trust in any relationship was no relationship at all…and she had burned far too many bridges in the past to even want to go through it again.
But here she was. Another bridge torched, with a wonderful guy who was willing to wait for her and give her the world…all ruined because she couldn't summon the courage to tell the simple truth.
So she said the two words that she knew were useless and weak, ineffective in healing the hurt on both sides. "I'm sorry," Callie whispered, her voice shaking.
She turned to him, only to see him gripping the steering wheel tightly as if his life depended on it. His face was pressed forward, his chest heaving as he drew another breath.
Once again, silence persisted in the closed space, only this time, the pain outwardly demanded to be felt, no longer hidden under wraps of denial or omission.
Hunter eventually turned to her, the playfulness in his green eyes long gone and replaced with emptiness.
"If only your apology really fixed any of this," he murmured. "But I think the person who deserves an apology more than me is Abby."
He paused. "Did you ever consider how she would feel about this? How hurt she would be to know that this was kept from her? I know that I'm hurting right now, but I could only imagine the pain felt if I was in her place."
Callie ran a hand through her hair, sighing. She knew, which was exactly why she didn't have the heart to say it. "It's not in my place to say…it's their relationship."
He shook his head. "It may be their relationship, but with this history between you and Brandon, it is part of your business to say it, too."
She didn't even want to imagine the shattered look in those fragile hazel eyes. "I can't."
"What choice do you have?" he questioned. "Brandon clearly doesn't have the balls to say it."
She didn't say anything, knowing that it was true. It was cowardly of Brandon to not tell Abby, and she doubted he would say it anytime soon.
Hunter sighed, releasing his hands from the steering wheel to run through his hair. "Well, whatever you decide to do is up to you. Let's leave it at that."
He paused. "You know, I really liked you, Callie," he said softly. "So much."
She bit her lip. She knew where this was going.
"Hunter, I really liked you, too," she responded, her voice breaking.
As much as she wanted to fight this, she knew that she didn't have a choice. She messed up, and there was no turning back.
"I'm so, so sorry," she whispered.
"I know you are," he smiled sadly. "Come here."
Hunter reached over to her, pulling her into an embrace. Tears flowed from both sets of eyes, their breaths shaky as they shuddered together.
Callie tightly held on to him, crying softly. She buried her nose into the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent. The sweetness of his smell only reminded her of the sweetness of the relationship they shared, producing another onslaught of tears to pour down her face.
She hated goodbyes…they always took away a piece of her every time. And she didn't know how many more pieces she had left to give.
And there is Chapter 12, finally done. Oh man…this was painful for me to write. I am in tears :'( I felt a connection to Hunter, and writing this for him hurt. For those of you who are fans of Hunter, don't worry, you'll see him again. Please leave a review and tell me what you think.
